Dave McNary wrote:Steve Kloves, best known for adapting seven of the eight "Harry Potter" films for Warner Bros., has been recruited to polish the studio's live-action remake of Japanese manga epic "Akira."

Albert Hughes is directing "Akira," based on Katsuhiro Otomo's graphic novel set in a post-apocalyptic Japan. Warner acquired the "Akira" rights three years ago from publisher Kodansha and set it up with Andrew Lazar's Mad Chance with Appian Way's Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Davisson Killoran.

The studio is looking to go into production this summer.

Hughes and his brother, Allen Hughes. will also produce.

Warners hasn't cast or set a release date for "Akira," which is set in a metropolis that was rebuilt after being destroyed decades earlier by Akira, a child with immense psychic powers. Otomo wrote and directed the popular 1988 Japanese anime film of the same name, and he'll exec produce WB's "Akira."

The latest version of the script was penned by Albert Torres, with earlier drafts by Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby and Gary Whitta.

Kloves penned all the adaptations for the "Potter" pics except for the fifth, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," which was written by Michael Goldenberg. He took a break from the series to work on "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time." His other credits include "Wonder Boys" and "The Fabulous Baker Boys."

SilentBobX wrote:Still smell a mushroom cloud of disastrous crap. The movie should not be remade, let alone 'Americanized'.

Mahalo

I agree.

There's something inherently cultural about Katsuhiro's work and it's also something which compells me to watch a lot of what he does. To remove thos cultural elements from Akira would really turn the movie into something which is not Akira.

So I say, Hollywood, go make your I am Number 4 part 2 and leave this alone.

SilentBobX wrote:Still smell a mushroom cloud of disastrous crap. The movie should not be remade, let alone 'Americanized'.

Mahalo

It may be a better idea to Americanize it to such a level that it is a new story and rename the movie. The Magnificent 7 was awesome.

Magnificent 7 was awesome, but that was a long time ago. The current filmmaking machine in Hollywood doesn't respect or care about source material the way it did back then. Also, this is a completely different story, and the ideas will go over the studio heads' heads. It just won't work, imho. I have a bad feeling they'll do the usual: Dumb it down, prop up the action beats, throw in a weak story, ramp up the FX to near sensory overload, and dump product placement all over it. And I may be a raging cynic for this, but I remember the horror of Godzilla more than the beauty of Magnificent 7 sadly. Yes, I feel bad for that.

SilentBobX wrote:Still smell a mushroom cloud of disastrous crap. The movie should not be remade, let alone 'Americanized'.

Mahalo

It may be a better idea to Americanize it to such a level that it is a new story and rename the movie. The Magnificent 7 was awesome.

Magnificent 7 was awesome, but that was a long time ago. The current filmmaking machine in Hollywood doesn't respect or care about source material the way it did back then. Also, this is a completely different story, and the ideas will go over the studio heads' heads. It just won't work, imho. I have a bad feeling they'll do the usual: Dumb it down, prop up the action beats, throw in a weak story, ramp up the FX to near sensory overload, and dump product placement all over it. And I may be a raging cynic for this, but I remember the horror of Godzilla more than the beauty of Magnificent 7 sadly. Yes, I feel bad for that.

Mahalo

To be honest, Akira did turn into a massive FX spoogefest in the Cartoon (and it looked fantastic), but I do agree that the source material won't be respected.

Annalee Newitz wrote:We've read some casting pages that were sent out recently for the live-action American version of classic 1980s anime Akira, and let's just say things are not looking good.

Luckily, the pages we saw are from an early draft, and it's being rewritten by Harry Potter scribe Steve Kloves. So let's hope some of the dialogue will get a redo. We did get a taste of how the movie might be shaping up to fit its American context. And we're excited that the writers are trying to include themes from the original manga that barely appeared in the Japanese movie.Spoilers below...

The usual disclaimers apply here — these are casting pages that were sent out to casting agencies recently, and they appear to be pages from the latest draft of the screenplay. But there's no guarantee that they're actual pages from the script. And of course, we already know the script will be rewritten before filming. Still, after looking at this latest draft, it's easy to see why James Franco passed on this project.

UPDATE: An inside source has told us that these pages are the genuine article, but that they are from a very old script that was abandoned a long time ago. The version of the script that Kloves is rewriting is reportedly a lot different, although it's possible that some of these ideas still remain. So this is more of a glimpse into an earlier stage of the process, even though these script pages were just sent out to casting agencies this month.

MIKE FLEMING wrote:The script for the Warner Bros/Legendary Pictures live action adaptation of anime artist Katsuhiro Otomo’s 6-volume graphic novel Akira has been sent to a short list of actors. The picture is finally taking shape for an August start, following the delivery of a rewrite by Steve Kloves that has director Albert Hughes and the studio brass excited. The story takes place in the rebuilt New Manhattan where a leader of a biker gang saves his friend from a medical experiment. There are two major roles, and I'm told that for Tetsuo, Robert Pattinson, Andrew Garfield and James McAvoy have been given the new script. For the role of Kaneda, the script has been given to Garrett Hedlund, Michael Fassbender, Chris Pine, Justin Timberlake and Joaquin Phoenix. The two leads are expected to come from that group of actors.

Andrew Lazar is producing with Appian Way’s Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Davisson Killoran. Akira has been one of Warner Bros' high priority projects since the studio with Legendary Pictures acquired it for a 7-figure sum 2 years ago from manga publisher Kodansha. The intention has been to make 2 films, each covering 3 books in the series. Akira was first adapted for the screen in 1988.

Drew McWeeny wrote:I'm still unconvinced about "Akira" as a live-action property.

I'm convinced that hiring Steve Kloves to come in as a screenwriter on pretty much anything is a good idea, so the news that the studio is moving forward with casting how that he's done with his rewrite of the script suggests that he managed to crack what has been a difficult task for everyone assigned to it so far.

I've read Gary Whitta's first couple of passes at the project, and I've heard about the plans Albert Hughes has for the film, and it sounds to me like a really strange and risky project. Little surprise. The Katsuhiro Otomo manga and the 1988 film based on it are both surreal, dense, and even as a fan, I'd hardly call them ironclad examples of how to write a compelling narrative. They are dreamy, filled with big memorable images that frequently seem to work more as experience than story. I love the movie, but I am also weirded out by it each time I revisit it. Like "Godzilla," the prior incarnations of "Akira" have been built out of the mythology and psychology of a country that actually knows what it's like to have nuclear bombs dropped on it, and the scar that leaves on a national psyche comes out in these films in fascinating and organic ways. Moving the setting to "New Manhattan" does the same thing that happened when they remade the Argentinian film "Nine Queens" as "Criminal" in the US: they can tell the same surface story, but the subtext vanishes because of geography, robbing the original of much of its meaning.

That doesn't mean I think "Akira" will be bad. I'm just curious to see what they'e done with it, and why they're looking at guys like Robert Pattinson, Andrew Garfield, and James McAvoy for a character named "Tetsuo" and Garrett Hedlund, Michael Fassbender, Chris Pine, Justin Timberlake, and Joaquin Phoenix to play "Kaneda." These aren't really Anglo names. According to Deadline, whoever plays the parts will come from those two shortlists, and it brings up a few interesting possibilities.

Would Warner really want to pair Fassbender and McAvoy again on a movie about people who have psychic powers that could destroy the world? Seems unlikely. If they were to cast, say, Pattinson and Pine, that's an interesting combination of charisma, and my money would be on Pine in the battle of the Blue Steels. Could we end up with Tron Jr. versus the new Spider-man? And if they cast Joaquin Phoenix, will they need any special effects?

This has been an important film for Warner, development-wise, for a while now, and it looks like they're getting closer and closer to actually pulling the trigger on it. If they're serious about an August start date, we'll start hearing more and more details in the months ahead, and I will be very interested to see what they end up doing. I don't think these are sacred text, and I think there's room to certainly improve on the actual storytelling of the original, but there's also just as much room to make a big embarrassing heap of fanboy-pandering crap, too.

Here's hoping Kloves has broken this thing, and that the right cast falls together. It's in Akira's hands now.

Man this just gets better and better! I hope they end up with Patterson and Phoenix, and this movie bombs in an epic way.I'm not really a fan of rooting against movies, but this just seems like such a mess from top to bottom...

so sorry wrote:Man this just gets better and better! I hope they end up with Patterson and Phoenix, and this movie bombs in an epic way.I'm not really a fan of rooting against movies, but this just seems like such a mess from top to bottom...

At this point the only thing that will stop this movie being made is a full blown meltdown in Japan and then they'll stop production indefinately out of respect...

so sorry wrote:Man this just gets better and better! I hope they end up with Patterson and Phoenix, and this movie bombs in an epic way.I'm not really a fan of rooting against movies, but this just seems like such a mess from top to bottom...

At this point the only thing that will stop this movie being made is a full blown meltdown in Japan and then they'll stop production indefinately out of respect...

MIKE FLEMING wrote:EXCLUSIVE: The twists and turns on the Warner Bros adaptation of anime artist Katsuhiro Otomo’s graphic novel Akira continue. Director Albert Hughes is exiting the movie, I’m told. Insiders say that it is an amicable creative differences parting of the ways. Warner Bros will try to put him on another movie right away (Hughes and his brother Allen directed the hit The Book of Eli, and WB topper Jeff Robinov is their former agent and is very close with them). Hughes is coming to Hollywood next week to take meetings with his WME reps and look at scripts, hoping to find his next movie at Warner Bros.

As for Akira, the intention of the studio is to keep the picture on a fast track, which means they will find a director quickly. The studio has been wrestling with the approach on the film for the past year. Last March, Warner Bros put together a short list of up-and-coming actors after getting a strong rewrite by Steve Kloves that set the film in a rebuilt New Manhattan, where a leader of a biker gang saves his friend from a medical experiment. At the time, Robert Pattinson, Andrew Garfield and James McAvoy were given the script for the role of Tetsuo, and Garrett Hedlund, Michael Fassbender, Chris Pine, Justin Timberlake and Joaquin Phoenix were courted for Kaneda. The two leads were expected to come from that group of actors. Then, the studio had a change of heart and, given the budget, wanted to have an established box office star in the movie. That led to a flirtation with Keanu Reeves that ended recently.

Warner Bros is back to the other plan, and will likely go back to that list of actors in hopes of making the picture later this year or early next.

Andrew Lazar is producing with Appian Way’s Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Davisson Killoran. Akira has been one of Warner Bros' high-priority projects since the studio with Legendary Pictures acquired it for a seven-figure sum two years ago from manga publisher Kodansha. The intention has been to make two films, each covering three books in the series. Akira was first adapted for the screen in 1988.

AKA WB is looking for the cheapest, weak spined "director" they can find to pin the blame on and churn this shit pile out to capture the opening week box office and saddle blame for poor returns on a green director and cast...

Spandau Belly wrote:So according to AICN they hired the dude who made ORPHAN and gave him a budget of $90 million dollars to make this thing. Try summerizing the previous sentence in one word that isn't "doomed".

Jeff Sneider wrote:Warner Bros. is moving ahead with its remake of "Akira" in a fiscally sensible way, tapping reliable Spanish helmer Jaume Collet-Serra ("Orphan," "Unknown") to direct a live-action version of the anime cult hit at a lower revised budget of $90 million.

WB acquired the potential tentpole project for a seven-figure sum from Japanese manga publisher Kodansha in 2008. Ruairi Robinson and Albert Hughes were previously attached to direct the adaptation of Katsuhiro Otomo's graphic novel, but Hughes exited amicably in May over creative differences.

Gary Whitta was the first writer attached, while Albert Torres and the team of Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby also contributed drafts. Steve Kloves, WB's go-to scribe for its lucrative "Harry Potter" franchise, most recently polished Torres' draft.

Set in New Manhattan, the cyberpunk sci-fi epic follows the leader of a biker gang who must save his friend, discovered with potentially destructive psychokinetic abilities, from government medical experimentats.

Appian Way's Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Davisson Killoran are producing with Mad Chance's Andrew Lazar. Otomo, who wrote and directed the 1988 Japanese anime pic of the same name, will exec produce "Akira."

Collet-Serra has earned a reputation for delivering pics on time and on budget, and his box office performance has been rising with each effort: His feature directorial debut "House of Wax" took in $68 million worldwide in 2005, while 2009's "Orphan" grossed more than $76 million worldwide. Earlier this year, Liam Neeson starrer "Unknown" opened in the top spot and has grossed more than $130 million worldwide on a reported production budget of $30 million.

Helmer is also attached to direct WB's vampire pic "Harker," another Appian Way production.

Justin Kroll wrote:It seems like it's been forever since Warner Bros. first announced it was making AKIRA pic with Leonardo DiCaprio's Appian Way producing. Now, after a handful of rewrites and a director change, WB's seems closer to making a decision on whether to give the film a greenlight after the filmmakers gave a presentation on Wednesday to Warner execs that included a revised budget. Sources say most people are confident execs will be happy with the new budget ... but you never know in this town. Be prepared for some kind of decision sometime next week.

Justin Kroll wrote:Warner Bros. has greenlit its live-action remake of the anime cult hit "Akira" for a late February/early March start, sources tell Variety.

In July, Warners tapped Spanish helmer Jaume Collet-Serra ("Unknown" ) to direct at a budget of $90 million, which was brought down from an initial figure of well over $100 million. Where the budget stands now isn't clear, and Warner Bros. had no comment on the project.

With a greenlight in place, studio can begin shopping for the two male leads; sources tell Variety that "Tron: Legacy" star Garrett Hedlund is considered a front-runner. Both Warners and Collett-Sera have been keen on the thesp, but had to wait for a greenlight to make their move.

Though no offer's been made, insiders say an offer could come soon.

"Akira," long in development at the studio, has hit several speedbumps over the last several months, including Albert Hughes falling out as director. Collet-Serra was brought on quickly, but working out the budget took about two months, with studio and creative execs meeting last week before the decision was sealed over the weekend.

WB acquired the potential tentpole project for a seven-figure sum from Japanese manga publisher Kodansha in 2008. Set in New Manhattan, the cyberpunk sci-fi epic follows the leader of a biker gang who must save his friend, discovered with potentially destructive psychokinetic abilities, from government medical experiments.

Katsuhiro Otomo, who wrote and directed the 1988 Japanese anime pic of the same name, will exec produce "Akira."

Todd Brown wrote:With the Jaume Collet-Sera helmed US remake of Akira now officially green lit the talk now turns to casting the beast. Word began to circulate late last week that Tron: Legacy star Garret Hedlund is in talks to play Kaneda and while Twitch is indeed hearing those talks are ongoing - albeit in the early stages - there are two other parts that are much more advanced.

Twitch has learned that Gary Oldman has been offered the role of Colonel while Helena Bonham-Carter has been offered Lady Miyako.

Frankly I'm surprised to see Hedlund being offered another project on this scale following Tron - a film that succeeded financially despite him, not because of him - but any film that has a one-two of Oldman and Bonham Carter immediately assures itself of at least a certain degree of quality. I'd pay to watch these two read the phone book to each other, honestly.You might also like:

As far as casting these characters with white actors, Carter is actually a really good choice. I recently read all six of the graphic novels and she's a pretty neat character in the books. In the cartoon film her character is reduced to being a crazy street preacher apocalypse nut who only gets a moment of screentime and is killed off almost as a gag.

Oldman isn't the physical pressence that the Colonel was, but he's got a good moral authority to him. So I'm fine with that.

However, I also found the cartoon film to be far better than the books because it cut down on side characters such as Lady Miyako, that giant woman, the gameshow host guy who becomes Tetsuo's agent or whatever. The film really got to the heart of the story. The books go in circles and become a little tiresome, unfocussed and repetative. The books go on forever with different factions briefly gaining possesion of Akira before the next faction steals him. There are endless chase sequences. Tokyo also explodes so many times that it loses its impact. I prefer the film where Tokyo only explodes twice.

I did like it better in the book that Tetsuo was a drug addict and his drug use was what kept his powers at bay. And I liked Kaneda and Joker teaming up against Tetsuo. It would've been cool to have had that plotline in the film, but it was fine without it.

The aircraft carrier looked cool exploding, but none of that stuff with the world's acedemics and the American soldiers really contributed anything in my opinion. When I was reading it I thought introducing all these acedemics on an aircraft carrier would be a good way for the book to discuss some of its ideas explicitly, but that didn't really happen, it was just one more massive structure for Tetsuo to destroy and another faction to squabble over controlling Akira.

My only commentary I can really add to this discussion is Space Battleship Yamato. It is a Japanese property that rightly belongs to them and would have been trashed in the hands of us gaijin. Same goes for Akira. On a related note, has anyone knowledge of the US release?

Silas Lesnick wrote:It's been a rough road for Warner Bros.' live-action adaptation of Akira, but the project seemed to be moving steadily forward after receiving the green light from the studio last October. Today, however, The Hollywood Reporter has word that pre-production has been halted so that the film's budget can be reworked, bringing the current $90 million pricetag down by at least $20 million if the project is to move forward.

Famously adapted as an anime in 1988, Akira is based on the original manga by Katsuhiro Otomo, depicting a sci-fi cyberpunk dystopia. The new version is said to relocate the action to "New Manhattan" rather than "Neo-Tokyo."

To be directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, the live-action adaptation features a script from Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby, Gary Whitta and Steve Kloves. Though Garrett Hedlund is the only attached actor, Helena Bonham Carter, Kristen Stewart and Ken Wattanabe are all said to be up for parts as well.

Collet-Serra will work with the producers to try and drive down costs as the script is finalized over the next two weeks, but if that doesn't happen to the studio's satisfaction, the project could be off the table entirely.

Justin Kroll & Dave McNary wrote:At a time when blockbuster budgets are facing extra scrutiny, Warner Bros. has halted pre-production on its live-action "Akira" remake, which Jaume Collet-Serra is set to direct.

Studio confirmed Thursday that it shut down the project's Vancouver offices as the creative team reworks the story.

Though it was reported that WB wanted to whittle down the $90 million budget -- cut once already from the $130 million-$150 million range -- insiders tell Variety that execs want fixes on the sci-fi script that's already gone through rewrites from Steve Kloves and David James Kelly.

Delays for major titles are nothing unusual: "The Hobbit" will have taken nearly a decade by the time the first pic unspools in December. In recent months, budget issues were largely responsible for hobbled production starts ("The Lone Ranger" at Disney) or projects being shelved outright ("The Dark Tower" series and "At the Mountains of Madness" at Universal).

And though creative concerns alone are icing "Akira," Warner Bros. projects haven't been immune to the belt-tightening mentality spurred by the dual problems of declining theater attendance and downward DVD revenue. To wit:

•Steven Soderbergh ankled from directing spy pic "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." in November after the director and the studio disagreed over budget issues.

•"Arthur and Lancelot," given a March 15, 2013, release date, is on hold while the studio pares down David Dobkin's $135 million budget to $110 million.

•"Paradise Lost," a retelling of John Milton's epic Lucifer tale financed by Legendary, will miss its January start date over budget issues.

Warner execs declined to comment, though Time Warner chief financial officer John Martin noted at a Citigroup conference Thursday in San Francisco that the company is bullish about WB's 2012 lineup -- "as good as you can at the start of the year about any film slate," he said, singling out "The Dark Knight Rises" and "The Hobbit." But he also said the overall DVD market looks weaker in the fourth quarter than the third, which is likely driving decisionmaking.

Warners remains aggressive in acquiring new material, and its slate for the next two years looks formidable. Besides the two "Hobbit" films, it has the most anticipated title of the year in "The Dark Knight Rises" and next year's Superman revamp "Man of Steel." And WB has nearly three dozen producing deals, far more than any other studio, and output pacts with a trio of reliable suppliers in Legendary, Alcon and Village Roadshow.

As for "Akira," which has only "Tron: Legacy" star Garrett Hedlund locked, the studio is by no means pulling the plug. Insiders said a new writer will probably be brought on over the next two weeks to focus on character elements and particularly on the pic's look. While no one's yet been offered the job, studio is said to be eyeing Jonah Nolan ("The Dark Knight," "The Dark Knight Rises") and Michael Green ("Green Lantern").

WB prexy Jeff Robinov met with the "Akira" team to discuss several issues, including who would land the second lead opposite Hedlund. Choices had been narrowed down to Michael Pitt and Dane DeHaan, but the studio wanted to wait until after the holidays to decide. Now that decision will be delayed further.

Justin Kroll wrote:Jaume Collet-Serra is in discussions to return to the “Akira” directors chair, signing on to helm Warner Bros. adaptation of the popular anime pic. The helmer left in early 2012 after production stalled.

In early 2012, the studio shut down pre-production so that fixes could be made to the script, including tightening the budget from its original $90 million range. At the time, Collet-Serra was in such high demand coming off the recent success of the Liam Neeson action pic “Unknown,” that he decided to leave instead of waiting for the changes to be made so that he could pursue other projects. He eventually landed another Neeson pic, “Non Stop,” which bows next February.

The studio did begin looking at other directors recently, including “Catfish” helmers Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman, in hopes of finding someone who could deliver a film on a more smaller scale. But ultimately, the studio was still in love with Collet-Serra’s vision, and sources say the director found time in his schedule as well as a new way to appraoch the adaptation that would meet the studio’s budget request.

Collet-Serra is currently in pre-production on the crime pic “Run All Night” with Neeson, Joel Kinnaman and Ed Harris and would do “Akira” afterwards in spring of 2014. It is unknown what the new budget would be.

WB acquired the potential tentpole project for a seven-figure sum from Japanese manga publisher Kodansha in 2008. Set in New Manhattan, the cyberpunk sci-fi epic follows the leader of a biker gang who must save his friend, discovered with potentially destructive psychokinetic abilities, from government medical experiments.

Appian Way’s Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Davisson Killoran are producing with Mad Chance’s Andrew Lazar. Katsuhiro Otomo, who wrote and directed the 1988 Japanese anime pic of the same name, will exec produce.

Garrett Hedlund was attached to star but it is unknown if his schedule would still allow him to do it.